Charlotte Eilenberg

Plays by Charlotte Eilenberg

Broken dreams and hopes for a new identity collide Lucky Ones, a play about two families of Jewish refugees and belonging.

Some years after fleeing Nazi Germany, two couples — Bruno and Anna, and her brother Leo and his wife Ottilie — bought their own little piece of England, a country cottage jointly owned between them. Thirteen years later both families are happily settled in North London, with children growing up, and they’ve decided to sell the cottage. Leo is keen to raise the asking price in order to repay the debt to their father, who is now seriously ill. But when the buyer, Lisa, turns out to be also from Berlin, he demands an extraordinary condition of sale at the last minute. Decades later, Leo’s son Daniel and Bruno’s daughter Beth talk with Lisa, confronting the legacy that their parents have left them.

The Lucky Ones premiered in 2002 at the Hampstead Theatre, London.

Charlotte Eilenberg's first play, The Lucky Ones, premiered at Hampstead Theatre in 2002 and won her the Most Promising Playwright award at the 2003 Olivier Awards. Her second play, Shrunk, was produced in 2010 at the Cock Tavern, Kilburn.